"For more than a year, three white women made Marc Peeples’ life hell—all for the sin of building a community garden in their Detroit neighborhood.

As the Detroit Metro Times reports, throughout 2017 and early 2018, the women harassed Peeples, who is black, and called the police on him multiple times, alleging that he was a pedophile; threatened one of them with a gun; vandalized neighborhood homes and even claimed he took part in a drive-by shooting.

Eventually, Detroit police—for some still inexplicable reason—filed stalking charges against him. Peeples and the women—of whom only one, Deborah Nash, has been named—went to court. But on Tuesday, District Court Judge E. Lynise Bryant threw the case out, calling the debacle “disgusting” and “a waste of the court’s time and resources.”

“[The three white women] should be sitting at the defendant’s table for stalking and harassment charges, not Mr. Peeples,” Bryant said at the hearing, according to the Metro Times.

Among the many allegations,Nash and the other two white women launched against Peeples was a claim that he threatened Nash with a gun—a charge deemed by a Detroit police officer who responded to Nash’s call as “B.S.”

From the Metro Times:

Officer responding to the scene found Peeples raking leaves and cleaning up a vacant lot. In body camera footage provided to Metro Times, an officer is heard labeling the call “B.S.”

“Ain’t no law against raking leaves,” the officer is heard stating on body camera footage taken after officers are done investigating the incident. A few minutes later, an officer directed his partner to let DPD superiors know that the women told police that Peeples had a gun, when he only had a rake.

The women also accused Peeples of vandalizing vacant neighborhood homes and trees with “gang” colors: red, black, and green. Peeples’ attorneys clarified that the colors were pan-African colors and that the avid gardener boarded up the vacant houses to keep drug addicts out.

According to the Metro Times, when the false claim that Peeples had a gun didn’t get him removed from the neighborhood, the women ramped up their charges, waiting until Peebles had a group of children working in his community garden before calling the police and claiming he was a pedophile.

Once the women and Peeples went to trial, however, that claim fell apart:

One of the women told the court she learned from a principal at a nearby school that Peeples was a pedophile who wasn’t supposed to be around kids. However, [Peeple’s attorney] Burton-Harris called that a “blatant lie.” Peeples was teaching homeschool children about gardening, Burton-Harris said, and principals at nearby schools wouldn’t have known Peeples or the garden. Prosecution provided no corroboration from an alleged principal.

Peeples says it’s clear that the women would do whatever it took to get him off “their” block.

“It was blatant racism. They didn’t like the fact that a black man was in so-called ‘their’ neighborhood without their permission,” Peeples told the Metro Times. And even though he’s free and vindicated by the court, the women have already wrought substantial damage—to his wallet and his reputation.

Peeples set up a GoFundMe page to help recoup some of the money he’s lost paying a bond and attorneys, as well as for work contracts he lost dealing with the women’s false claims.

“It’s frustrating to have accusations placed on you with no merit, and they get you all the way into court to go to trial,” Peeples said.

“People are giving these ladies funny nicknames but this is serious,” he said. “This is my life, what these people are doing is not cute—it’s ugly.

“They get to ruin my life, say anything they want, and then they get to go on with their lives.”

Judge Bryant, in dismissing the case, also chastised Detroit PD and the Wayne County Prosecutor’s Office for bringing the case forward to begin with.

“I want the police and prosecutors to do a better job of vetting,” she said."

What's so wrong about wanting to beautify the neighborhood? He's creating a neighborhood garden, beautifying the area, teaching the next generation of gardeners and making sure that drug addicts don't move into abandoned buildings? I guess that they would rather live in squalor. The only reason that they are going after him this hard is because he is black.

He doesn't have any spare money but maybe he needs to counter sue them for harassment, stalking, slander and whatever else he can. If they were party to a lawsuit against him, their names should be on the legal documents. Let's see how they stand up to being named and shamed.

What's so wrong about wanting to beautify the neighborhood? He's creating a neighborhood garden, beautifying the area, teaching the next generation of gardeners and making sure that drug addicts don't move into abandoned buildings? I guess that they would rather live in squalor. The only reason that they are going after him this hard is because he is black.

He doesn't have any spare money but maybe he needs to counter sue them for harassment, stalking, slander and whatever else he can. If they were party to a lawsuit against him, their names should be on the legal documents. Let's see how they stand up to being named and shamed.

He doesn't have any spare money but maybe he needs to counter sue them for harassment, stalking, slander and whatever else he can.

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I agree and I wish they had at least been able to make these 3 demons liable for his court costs. It is not fair that they can go this far in harming someone based on lies and just walk away without consequences and now he's lost income and more resources paid to the court because of their courtroom antics. They are so obsessed with us that even if we were still segregated, they would manage to find themselves in our spaces just to cause harm just like Black Wallstreet @nysister. I honestly think if we didn't exist to screw over, the majority would have no reason to get out of bed everyday.

I found their names in a tweet, Deborah Nash, Jennifer Morris and Martha Callahan.

I wonder has Shaun King seen this. He could get the story out to a wider audience.

I want those caucasoid cave beasts charged with filing a false police report, perjury, etc, etc. Their lives need to be ruined.

He’s needs to sue them.

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I agree. Reporting that he had a gun and was a pedophile?!!! That's attempted murder or at least trying to put him behind bars for years. I'm over these people ruining our lives for nothing. Aside from the fact he was obviously a better neighbor than these 3 chicks. It's sick when you think what they accused him of esp. measured against what he was actually doing. They need permanent dirt naps.

These women need to be made an example of STAT. The message needs to be sent world wide.

I still wish that there was an organization that specialized in these cases, that could help with those individuals lacking funds. My vision is that this organization would make these types of cases well-known so that those perpetuating these types of crimes will fully understand that there WILL be repercussions.

(As a side note, I REALLY HATE when people falsely accuse pedophilia. It is such a serious charge and it causes damage to those cases where it really happened. How dare these women use pedophilia so flippantly

I hope some kind attorney satisfy their pro bono requirement and help this man sue these creatures. My MIL's maiden name is the same as this guy's. I wonder if he's a relative, since they're both from Detroit.

Detroit man files lawsuit against women who called police on him in 'gardening while black' case

KIMBERLY CRAIG TALKED TO HIM
ABOUT TAKING THE WOMEN TO COURT.

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A black man is suing three white women who made up false allegations of stalking, threatening, gun violence and pedophilia against him for more than a year while he was building an urban garden in their Detroit community.

The situation began in 2017, when Marc Peeples committed to building the garden in a vacant playground in local Hunt Park, according to Essence. The three women — Deborah Nash, Martha Callahan and Jennifer Morris — live close to the park and decided to call the police and accuse Peeples of “illegal gardening.”

When officers wouldn’t take them seriously, the women allegedly escalated their claims, calling police on him numerous times throughout the year and into 2018 with various accusations. In one instance, the women accused Peeples of stalking and threatening to burn down Nash’s house and kill her. Nash even attempted to obtain an order of personal protection against Peeples, his attorney told Yahoo Lifestyle, but the court denied her request.

In another call, they claimed that Peeples was painting vacant houses and trees in “gang colors.” And in a third, they said Peeples was involved in a drive-by shooting. When police officers responded to that call, according to the Detroit Metro Times, they found the gardener raking leaves. The women even accused Peeples of pedophilia involving neighborhood children who were helping plant the garden.

Three neighborhood women falsely accused Marc Peeples of acting inappropriately with local children who helped him plant an urban garden in the community. (Photo: Courtesy of GoFundMe)
The Detroit Police Department and Wayne County Prosecutors Office eventually brought three counts of stalking against Peeples.

That’s when Peeples hired attorney Robert Burton-Harris to defend him. The pair alleged that every single accusation made against Peeples was false — and that the women had racist motivations for fabricating stories about him. They called the phenomenon “gardening while black.”

The case was thrown out of court on Oct. 16, 2018, by 36th District Court Judge E. Lynise Bryant, who called the allegations against the black man “troubling” and “ridiculous,” according to the Metro Times. “[The three white women] should be sitting at the defendant’s table for stalking and harassment charges, not Mr. Peeples,” Bryant said during the hearing. “This is disgusting and a waste of the court’s time and resources.”

Bryant later told the Metro Times that the women “engaged in a very targeted and constant harassment” of Peeples by filing false police reports and initiating all contact. She called their testimony “offensive.” Even police officers agreed; one officer’s body camera caught him calling one of the allegations he had responded to “B.S.”

Now that Peeples’s name has been cleared, though, he is ready for justice to be served against his accusers. With attorney Burton-Harris by his side, he filed a complaint last week in Circuit Court alleging that the women worked “concertedly to cause Marc economic harm and emotional distress” and engaged in “targeted harassment of [Peeples] for more than nine months,” says a police report obtained by the Metro Times.

Peeples is seeking $300,000 in damages from the three defendants. He is also trying to make the women answer to charges of lying to police and lying under oath.

“We want some consequences,” Burton-Harris said. “We waited to see if DPD or the prosecutor’s office would investigate the women, and that didn’t happen, so that’s part of the reason we decided to move forward.”

The attorney believes that in addition to racist feelings against Peeples, the women were driven by a desire to take over the park to “implement their own projects.”

“At all times, Deborah, Martha and Jennifer, collectively and individually, acted with the ulterior purpose of obtaining control over Hunt Park,” Burton-Harris wrote. “They made false police reports and accused Marc of various crimes that they knew he did not commit.”

Burton-Harris also told Yahoo Lifestyle, “Ms. Nash eventually confronted Marc about his improvements to the park. She testified that she didn’t like them because she wanted the park to remain uncultivated and wild.”

He said that his client’s preferred outcome for the case is to get Peeples “compensated for his experience, and we want the defendants held accountable for their actions.”

For Peeples, though, it’s personal. He wants to restore his reputation as an urban gardener who cares deeply about his community and the people in it. “I was arrested in front of children, and even after I was arrested my name was still being slandered, people were still saying things about me that wasn’t true,” he said. “I wanted to hold people accountable. I was locked up, I had to face trial, and I had to put my life back together.”

Peeples is pushing forward with the garden, Liberated Farms, as part of several local schools’ STEM curriculum. He plans to add playground equipment. “I have to do for my people and that’s my concern — rebuilding the neighborhood back up,” Peeples told the Metro Times.

To get the project finished, friends of Peeples started a GoFundMe on his behalf; it has raised almost $55,000 as of Wednesday morning. They also hope he’ll use the funds to buy a house for himself and his mother.